From immigration lawyer Matt Hayes in the WashTimes:

At last weekend's APEC summit, President Bush made clear the administration will try to justify its planned amnesty of illegal aliens as something necessary for greater border security. Despite unending criticism of his January call for the amnesty, the overwhelming passage of an Arizona state ballot initiative that prevents the use of public money on services for illegal aliens and every poll showing roughly 80 percent of Americans favor greater enforcement of our immigration laws, the president has decided the first political capital expenditure will be on an item Americans decidedly do not want.

The president now adopted completely the canard of the Wall Street Journal wing of the Republican Party, saying to the press corps at the summit that our border patrol's time would be better spent intercepting terrorists and drug traffickers than "people going to work." But members of the Border Patrol, speaking in defiance of a gag order issued by Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, say privately their recent deployment orders have created the widest holes in our border in 30 years. "We've been told, in essence, to park the trucks," said one agent in October...

...Though the president's plans remain vague, every bill that has been drawn up in response to his call for an amnesty has no provision mandating minimum wages for applicants for legal status. When the White House was asked if the administration sought a minimum wage guarantee, it said there were no plans to do so...

...Utah's 3rd Congressional District saw this year a race that can rightly be called a referendum on the president's amnesty plans. In one of the most heavily Republican districts in the country, incumbent Chris Cannon, who massively outspent his rivals, faced Democratic challenger Beau Babka. Before the general election, Mr. Cannon made it through a bruising primary contest in which his challenger - who campaigned almost solely on opposition to Mr. Cannon's sponsorship of the AgJOBS bill, the primary House amnesty bill - peeled off more than 40 percent of the incumbent's primary votes. Then in the November election, Mr. Babka, the Democrat, garnered the majority of the district's Latino votes even after he came out solidly against amnesty...

I can't find the Bush quote, but it sounds like something he'd say. I also have a question about the minimum wage requirements. That was the only wage-related provision mentioned when the plan was first announced. Now, even that is gone? This issue needs a bit of clarification.